À propos de l’œuvre
champ de coquelicots. Environs de Giverny, par Claude Monet
Claude Monet · Giverny · 1885 · W999
Poppy field, surroundings of Giverny W999hand painted reproduction
A field of cereals and poppies occupies the entire foreground, animated by touches of red, orange, white and green. Behind a strip of dark vegetation appear a few buildings, then hills gently close the valley under a vast blue sky crossed by clouds. Dated 1885, this oil on canvas of 65.5 × 81 cm bears the number MNR 639, is kept at the Museum of Fine Arts in Rouen and corresponds to Wildenstein 999.
Look at the work
The field is not a decorative surface: its colorful touches gradually lead towards the village and the hills
The closest poppies are broad red and orange accents, spaced among the light grasses. As you step back, these signs become smaller and tighter. This simple variation in scale transforms floral profusion into measurable depth.
The dark line of trees and hedges cuts the field without closing the view. The pale houses emerge in fragments, then the green slope and the sky occupy almost the upper half. The stretched clouds resume the oblique movement of the grass and give air to the whole.
Monet keeps the distance in the size of a few keys: large poppies at the edge of the painting, red dots in the distance, then village and hills almost absorbed by the light.
Composition, touch and light
What Monet builds behind the impression of snapshot
Three precise elements allow us to understand this composition and the essential difficulties of faithful reproduction.
A landscape around Giverny
Based in Giverny since 1883, Monet explored the nearby fields and valleys before his garden became a major subject. W999 belongs to those rural views of 1885 where the floral motif structures the space.
A depth without a central path
No road guides the eye. The progression depends rather on the sizes of keys, the successive strips of vegetation and the reduction in contrasts up to the hills.
A sky as active as the field
Whites, blues and some grays are brushed in long, irregular masses. Their movement responds to the herbs in the foreground and prevents the composition from dividing into two immobile areas.
Reference image
Read this specific version
The single image precisely reproduces MNR 639. The source scanning of 4,308 × 3,388 px is limited to 3,000 × 2,359 px then encoded as a real WebP.
Maintain poppies of varying sizes
Nearby flowers should remain wider and more distinct than those in the middle. A regular distribution would flatten the field and give the impression of a textile pattern.
Preserve the dark stripe behind the flowers
It creates the necessary contrast for the houses and separates the plans. Too black, it would cut the landscape; too light, it would make the depth of the valley disappear.
Keep the open touch of the big sky
Clouds should not be surrounded or smoothed. Their edges mixed with blue transmit the movement of the air and respond to the tighter material of the field.
Documented benchmarks
Three pieces of information specific to this work
The Musée d'Orsay documents Poppy field, surroundings of Giverny, oil on canvas from 1885, 65.5 × 81 cm, MNR number 639 and Wildenstein catalog 999.
An MNR work entrusted to the custody of museums
MNR stands for National Recovery Museums. The painting, found in Germany after the Second World War, does not definitively belong to the national collections and remains subject to the search for provenance.
Found near Munich in 1949
The painting was part of a collection of paintings discovered on a farm in Kölblöd. It was attributed to the Louvre in 1951 then deposited at the Museum of Fine Arts in Rouen in 1954.
The version is listed W999 by Wildenstein
The attribution to Monet was formerly discussed and the name of Blanche Hoschedé was mentioned. Daniel Wildenstein's catalog raisonné, however, retains the work under number 999.
Your reproduction
What the painter must preserve
Fidelity here depends on precise relationships between light, touch, depth and color temperature.
- The Wildenstein 999 version
- Red poppies of decreasing sizes
- The strip of vegetation and the houses in the middle
- The vast blue-white sky above the hills
Work sheet
| Title | Poppy field, surroundings of Giverny W999 |
|---|---|
| Artist | Claude Monet (1840 -1926) |
| Date | 1885 |
| Original technique | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 65.5 × 81 cm |
| Orientation | Horizontal |
| Conservation | Musée d'Orsay, deposit at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Rouen, Rouen, France |
| Inventory | MNR 639 · Wildenstein 999 |
| Your reproduction | Handmade oil painting on canvas |
Presentation in your interior
A palette designed with the room
This bright landscape is suitable for a dining room, living room or bedroom. A cream, sage green or very pale blue wall and a natural oak frame let poppies punctuate the room without weighing down the sky.
